File 247
by Bml1997
Summary: After losing someone close to him, a grieving Skipper starts looking through an old mission file which yields a surprise left by someone of Skipper's and the team's past, throwing the penguins into a whole new adventure, causing them to meet again with a certain someone the team had thought to never see again.
1. An Honorary Penguins

**Chapter 1: An Honorary Penguin**

Skipper sits in his bunk, reading through an old mission file. He sighs as he lifts the sheet to continue reading. His flipper softly drifts down the page and stops on the photo of a young woman. It stays there for a while as he silently thinks with a fond, distant smile.

"Skipper?" Private waddles over to him. "What are you doing?"

Skipper drops the page and clears his throat. "Just looking over an old mission file." He shrugs. He hops down from his bunk. "Why don't you see if Rico needs any help topside?" He says as he waddles over to the elevator and descends to his own personal level for some privacy.

Private is left there, puzzled, but soon shrugs it off and goes to do what his commanding officer told him. He does glance a bit concerned after his leader, though.

Meanwhile, Skipper sits down in his swivel chair at his desk and reopens the file. "And I never did come back, did I?" He murmurs to himself as he looks at the picture again. "So fiery, ambitious...I wonder if she ever did get that promotion." He smiles and reaches for his tin coffee mug on his left. He takes a long, slow sip as he thinks and then flips the page again.

The picture gets unclipped from the sheet and slips onto his desk, face-down. Skipper frowns and gets it, looking at the scrawled writing on the back of the photo in sky-blue crayon. He squints at it and attempts to decipher the squiggles onto another sheet, more clearly. "Johnson's writing?" He rubs his chin, but then shakes his head. "No. No, this is Manfredi's...Was Manfredi's." He frowns some and looks at the code. "But what does it mean? Why would he have written on a picture of _her_? _My_ picture of _her_!"

Skipper's frown deepens and he picks up his phone and dials Kowalski. "Kowalski, get down here now. Bring Manfredi's file with you." He then hangs up and leans back into the chair, turning the photo over and looking at the woman again.

Her head feathers were long and wavy, half of it up in a ponytail, the other half wasloose over her shoulders. Her blue-green eyes glimmered with a mischievous glint. Her smile was cordial, but secretive, as though she was bragging that she knew something that he didn't. Her salute was held mockingly.

Skipper gently traces the outline of her curves and lets out a deep sigh of regret and longing before he softly lays the photo back on his desk and shakes his head. "She could be dead by now…" He murmurs to himself and takes a sip from his coffee. His eyes then fall upon a picture of Marlene on his desk and he is stuck staring at it for a long moment. His heart sharply stings as he gets the picture sadly in his flippers.

The flat-headed penguin swallows a little and shakes his head and lays the picture face-down in a drawer. His wipes his eyes one quick time each with the back of his flipper. He then gets up and waddles a little away to another picture, one from the otter's habitat which he had gotten after the...incident. An edge of the photo is burned, one corner is gone completely. Her happy grin and her fun beachball contrast his mood immensely as he also puts it in the desk drawer.

"Another broken promise…" He sniffs a little and takes another sip of coffee in an attempt to settle himself. But his thoughts drift back to the fire at the petting-zoo a few weeks back. He remembers how Marlene had been moved there for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks as a short term exhibit and then would have returned to her normal habitat...Only she never got to. Skipper closes his eyes as he can nearly hear the screaming of the fire-engines again and the crying and whimpering of the petting-zoo animals. He can see Marlene running back into the fire after a baby bunny that had gotten stuck; he hadn't been quick enough to go in after it instead as he and his men were helping the sheep get free. He can see the flaming branch falling from the tree, once again crushing the bunny habitat in his mind's eye.

Skipper then opens his eyes again and with a trembling flipper gets his cup and just holds it in both of his flippers. He looks ununderstanding at his own reflection in his half-cup of coffee. "Why didn't I go in?" He whispers. "It should have been me…"

* * *

Private waddles into Kowalski's lab and watches as the scientist blows off an old file and glance through it. "Um, Kowalski?" He asks.

Kowalski glances up from the file. "Yes?"

"I'm worried about Skipper." He says simply and climbs up into a seat. "He's been acting weird since Marlene's...You know." The boy looks at him. "He was reading through some old file, too, and he wouldn't let me see!"

"Well, it might have been a classified one." His teammate shrugs as he closes another file. "Either way, I am going down to him now. Don't try to worry about him too much." He ruffles the boy's feathers. "You know how Skipper is...Just...I don't know, go see if the Lunacorns is on or something." He smiles softly at him and waddles from the lab. Kowalski sighs and rubs his face as he descends in the elevator to Skipper's level. He knows his commanding officer still hasn't fully recovered from Marlene's death. None of them had. Unquestionably, Skipper had been hit the hardest of them all...Though it has been obvious that Skipper has been trying to hide it.

Kowalski steps out from the elevator and looks at Skipper who is sitting with his head on his flippers on the desk. The scientist clears his throat with a soft look. "Sir?"

Skipper sits up and looks over at Kowalski. "It's about time…" He says, failing to sound as stern as he was attempting to be.

His ice blue eyes are red and a little watery, Kowalski notes as he looks at his short commander. "My apologies, Skipper, but it took some time to locate Manfredi's file as you requested." He hands the file to him with a small nod. He also notes the absences of the pictures of Marlene Skipper had had up.

"Good." Skipper nods and clears his throat a bit as he gets the file and opens it.

"May I ask why you wanted his file, sir?" He takes a step closer to his friend.

Skipper nods a bit and nods his head towards his desk. "I was looking through the file on Guatemala and found something with his writing on it…"

Kowalski nods and picks up the picture with a certain glance at Skipper. "A little soon, don't you think?"

Skipper makes no acknowledgment of his comment and instead continues to flick through the fat file on Manfredi.

The scientist sighs a little and shakes his head as he turns the picture over and looks at the crayon scribbles himself. "Looks like a code."

"No really, Kowalski!" Skipper gasps with a snort closely following it.

"Excuse me for saying anything." Kowalski murmurs and rolls his eyes as he looks at Skipper's rewrite of it. He fixes a couple of the digits and nods some. "Could be really anything...I mean, he was team cryptographer after all."

"Again you're telling me just what I already know, Kowalski." He sighs, unamused. "Tell me something new already."

Kowalski rubs his head and thinks. "Ehm…"

Skipper looks at him. "You're starting to slip, Kowalski."

"Slip!" He gasps with a look at him. "I am not!" He looks at him. "You're the one who still is moping around. The rest of us have moved on. I'm not accusing you, Skipper, nor rushing you, but you have no right to be saying that I am slipping." He snorts.

His commanding officer turns away from him without a word. Kowalski then sighs and rubs his face. "Skipper…" He says more softly. "I understand you're hurting." He sighs. "You know we all are...And it is going to take time for things to feel normal again." The scientist waddles over and softly lays his flipper on the shorter penguin's shoulder. "If you want to talk about it, Skipper, Private I'm sure is there for you."

Skipper now gives him a look. "As if I am going to talk about this kind of thing with a boy his age." He replies. "He's got his own emotions to deal with."

"I was joking, Skipper." Kowalski sighs some. "Trying to help lighten the mood...You see why I never do? But seriously, Skipper, if you want to talk, all of us would be willing to listen and try to help you get through this." He rubs his back some.

"Stop, please."

Kowalski still rubs his back with a soft smile.

"I said stop, Kowalski." Skipper gives him a half-hearted shove away.

"You said please, so I didn't take it as an order."

Skipper just sighs and sits at his desk again, shaking his head. "It should have been me, Kowalski." He turns and looks with his watery ice-blue eyes at his lieutenant. "She was a civilian."

"No, Skipper. You and I both know she was just as much part of the team as any of us." Kowalski says quietly and takes a deep breath. "She was an honorary penguin."

"Yeah…" Skipper swallows some and takes a deep breath. He gets the picture of the penguin woman again in his flipper. "See if you can figure out Manfredi's code...It may help us all if we have a change of subject...You know, a new mission."

Kowalski nods and gets the image. "Aye, aye, Skipper." Then with one last gentle look, Kowalski returns to the elevator and sighs. "I still think it is too soon for him to think of bringing her into this…" He looks at the picture. "There were _reasons_ she never joined the team."


	2. Scouting

**Chapter 2: Scouting**

"_Alright, boys, now here in Guatemala we have two rules." The flat-headed commander, younger and thinner, smirks as he paces and looks at his four-teammates. "Firstly, we are on a surveillance mission, so no explosions. Yes, Rico, that was explicitly directed at you." He glances at his recruit. "And secondly, there will be no frolicking around with the local dames." He now looks at another, younger recruit. "Manfredi."_

"_But Skipper!" Manfredi now whines and takes a step forward. "What's the fun in this then!? No explosions, no women! Next you're going to tell Kowalski and Johnson they aren't allowed science!"_

"_Actually he won't." Johnson adjusts his glasses and looks at his teammate. "Part of this mission is to take scientific samples." He and Kowalski share a subtle low-one._

_Skipper looks unamused at Manfredi. "Is that insubordination I here?"_

_Manfredi rolls his eyes and returns to his spot in line. "No, sir." He grumbles. He crosses his flippers and continues to murmurs a few more words under his breath._

"_Then if this is taken care of, let's get started." The leader nods and rubs his flippers together. "We'll be meeting first of all with...Um…" Skipper thinks on this._

"_Harvey, sir." Kowalski nods._

_Skipper points at Kowalski. "Yeah, that guy." He nods. "He will get us set up on more particulars and then we can officially start this thing."_

_Johnson nods and gets out a map and a compass. "Um, I think the camp is seventy degrees south from here." He says, tilting his head and pushing his glasses back up on his beak as he watches the compass. "No, no, I meant west, sorry." He then nods._

"_Well is it south or west, Johnson?" Skipper sighs and rubs his face._

"_Definitely east, sir." Johnson nods._

"_East!" He exclaims and grabs the compass from him. "I thought you knew how to read this thing, Johnson!" Skipper taps it some before shaking it and watching it move. "Ah well." He then shrugs and tosses it towards Rico, who catches it in his mouth and swallows it whole, much to Johnson's horror. "We'll just follow the river like the old explorers." _

"_That was brand new!" Johnson exclaims as Rico burps with a giggle._

"_It'll still be new, just nice and polished later when you get it back." Skipper shrugs. "It was a piece of junk anyway, doesn't work."_

_Johnson just stares at him open-beaked, aghast. Kowalski pats his shoulder. "We can find a new one when we're back in New York..." He whispers to him with a nod. Johnson nods, but then glares at Manfredi as he hears his teammate snickering._

"_What?" Manfredi smirks._

"_It's not funny." The scientist growls slightly as he glowers._

"_Sure it is! Your little compass-thingy just got gone, Johnny!" He laughs. "I doubt you'll ever see it again."_

_Johnson snorts and crosses his flippers. "Kowalski and I will find a new one."_

"_Of course you will." Manfredi nods and puts his arm over the scientist's shoulders with an obviously faked knowing-look._

"_Knock it off." He snorts and pushes him off._

_Manfredi still smirks and gets in fighting stance. "You think you can take me, nerd?"_

"_**Manfredi**." Skipper shoots him a stern look. _

"_Stick in the mud." The cryptographer grumbles and drops the stance, annoyedly crossing his flippers._

_Skipper nods tersely. "The map." He holds out his flipper to Johnson. Johnson hands it over with a sigh. Skipper unrolls it against a tree and looks at it._

"_Sir…" Kowalski clears his throat._

"_Not now, Kowalski." Skipper waves him off._

"_But, sir…"_

"_I said not now."_

"_But, sir...Your map is upside down." He clears his throat._

_Skipper glances at him and then looks at the map and leans away from it and turns it around. "Of course it was. I knew that." He rubs his chin and looks at the map and traces along the river on the map and glances around. "Manfredi, Rico, scout out ahead. Look for a river."_

"'_Mon, 'Fredi." Rico grunts and grabs his friend's flipper and drags him off with him. _

_Manfredi nods and waddles with him and looks around. "You think maybe we could sneak a small kaboom?" He chuckles._

_Rico looks at him with a wide smile, but then frowns and thinks. "'Ipper no." He shakes his head. "No kablamo…" He sighs._

_Manfredi gently nudges his ribs with his elbow. "Oh come on, Rico!" He grins._

"'_Ipper no no." Rico stubbornly shakes his head._

"_You're no fun either." He sighs and rubs his face. The cryptographer then looks around. "And I don't see any stupid rivers...Rico, give me a boost." He says as he goes to a tree. Rico nods and waddles over and gives him a boost up to the nearest branch. He then pulls himself up and starts climbing farther up the tree. He then wiggles along the branch and looks around. He looks down at Rico. "__**THE RIVER IS BETWEEN TEN AND ELEVEN O'CLOCK!**_" _He shouts._

_Rico nods below and motions for Manfredi to jump down. Manfredi looks unamused at him and starts to climb down. "I am not about to jump from this tree and expect him to catch me. It'd be my luck he'd spit up a-" He then grins. "__**ALRIGHT!**_" _He shouts down and gets ready to jump. He looks at the the ground from the dizzy height. Rico looks so tiny and a little bleary. Manfredi starts to feel a little queasy and begins to rethink this plan. However, an irritable __jaguarundi, who had been pleasantly sleeping on the branch above Manfredi, snarls and drops down upon his branch, shaking it. _

"_Woa-woah!" Manfredi exclaims as he struggles to keep his balance on the shaking branch. He looks wide-eyed at the feline and smiles hesitantly. "E-easy there, kitty-c-cat. You don't want to do anything hasty n-now, do you?"_

_The jaguarundi bares his sharp teeth with a glare of death. With honed claws, the feline easily approaches Manfredi. His head is low, his rounded ears lay back against his russet head. He swipes his paw at Manfredi with a low, "Mwwraaaawwwwrrrroooowwww!"_

_Manfredi scrambles back on his shortening, shaking branch. His grass-colored eyes flash with panic as he glances back down at his friend and then again at the angry jaguarundi. He then lets himself roll from the branch with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He holds his breath until he makes impact with Rico's soft and feathery flippers. Manfredi tentatively opens one eye and glances around. "Am I dead?"_

_Rico shakes his head. "Nuh uh! Got 'ittle buddy!" He says proudly and hugs Manfredi close._

"_Great…" He sighs and deals with the hugging; he feels too shaken up to resist. His eyes instead gaze back up at the jaguarundi that is climbing down the tree. Manfredi looks at Rico then nervously. "Go, Rico! Now! There's a __**cat**_ _coming!"_

"_Meow-meow?" Rico gasps and looks at the tree. "Meow-meow!" He puts Manfredi on his back and takes off sliding._

"_Waaaa-aaaaa-aaaaooooo!" Manfredi exclaims as he is bumped along, sitting on Rico's back like a jockey, holding onto his feathers for dear life. He looks back over his shoulder at the jungle cat and nudges him. "Evasive maneuvers!"_

_Rico slides faster and in a serpentine manner. He then hangs an abrupt left turn into a thorny thicket. Manfredi ducks down and flattens himself upon Rico in an attempt to avoid the briars that tear at them as they slide through. They then shoot out into the middle of a clearing. For a moment they just lay stay there, motionless before bursting out into tense laughter._

"_Do you even know where we are?" Manfredi laughs warily as he looks back at the thicket._

"_Nuh uh." Rico shakes himself in a poor attempt to shed some of the briars from his feathers._

"_I was afraid of that…" Manfredi then sighs and dusts himself off. He notices he has a few bleeding scratches but shrugs them off and sits down on the forest floor. "So we are stuck here until Skipper gets tired of waiting and starts looking for us."_

_Rico gasps, but then looks thoughtful. "Kablamo?"_

_Manfredi gives him a weird look. "Explosions? Seriou-brilliant!" He exclaims and hops up. "But that might attract more than we want." He rubs underneath his beak. "A flare gun would work better."_

_Rico nods and starts hacking up objects. After a few, Manfredi catches one and holds up his flipper for Rico to stop. "This should do it, Rico. If not, then explosives is our plan B."_

"_B!" Rico claps excitedly._

"_But hopefully this will work and we won't need plan B." He nods and points it upwards and fires three shots. He then sighs and gives it back to Rico. "And now we wait…"_


	3. Manfredi's Log

**Chapter 3: Manfredi's Log**

Kowalski taps his beak as he looks at the code on his workbench. "T56Z3-PL28R…" He murmurs. "Numbers and letters...If Manfredi meant for us to know what it meant, he wouldn't have made it too hard, I'm sure." He gets up and starts pacing. "Ergo, it should be something fairly obvious...Probably it is so obvious that it is difficult."

"'Fredi? Wat ya talk'n 'bout?" Rico asks, looking at him from just outside the door, having heard Kowalski's ramblings.

The scientist stops and looks at his friend. "Skipper found one of Manfredi's codes on the back of a photo from File 247." He says, showing it to him.

Rico looks at it and then shrugs. "I dunno." He does waddle into the lab though and closes the door behind himself.

"I didn't expect you to know, Rico." Kowalski snorts a bit and looks at it. "Still, Skipper wants this figured out asap...And by asap, I mean he already wants it solved and in his flippers."

Rico nods and looks at it. "'Fredi?"

Kowalski sighs some and rubs his face. "It's not really that simple, Rico. Manfredi was a fairly private penguin when it came to his codes…You remember how he would lock himself away and lock the room after he left it."

"Book?" He then grumbles curiously.

The scientist now turns and looks at him oddly. "What book?"

Rico shakes his head. "No book." He grunts.

"But you just were talking about a book, Rico..." He sighs and rubs his face. He then watches as Rico starts motioning and incomprehensibly jabbering on about something. Rico then slides out after some very enthusiastic motions and squabbling. "Note to self...Next invention, work on a Rico translator." He mumbles and shakes his head. He returns his attention to his page that is covered with scratched out failures of breaking the code. Kowalski rips it out of his notebook, balls it up, and tosses it to the growing mountain of the trashcan and tries again.

"Dis book!" Rico exclaims, sliding back in with a small computer in his outstretched flippers.

Kowalski looks over at him with a look of final understanding. "Ohhhh! A netbook!" He nods and gets it from Rico. He opens it up and turns it on only to come to a locked home-page. The scientist frowns, highly unamused, but also unsurprised. "Of course he locked it." He then sighs and shakes his head. "We aren't any further now that we had been, Rico."

Rico rolls his eyes as he takes the computer back and types in the password. "He ma' li'l buddy. I know password." He grunts.

The avian blinks his surprise and takes the computer again. He clears his throat with a nod. "Erm, yes, so I can see…" He opens up a file on the computer and looks at the code on the picture again. He tries typing the code into the search.

Another file pops up with a video recorded message; a Manfredi's Log file.

Kowalski looks at Rico before he sits the computer back and presses play. He and Rico take a seat at his workbench and watch it.

"Greetings." Manfredi nods to the camera. "So as I told you last log, the team and I had to go Guatemala for a mission. Well, we just got back after nearly killing each other-I won't go into details on that as I'd really like to forget all of that, as I'm sure my bros would like to do, too." He shakes his head with a sigh. "But for in case I ever _do_ want to get myself flipper deep into some of that sweet misery again, I did keep her card." He chuckles. He then waves his flippers some. "And I'm off-topic, yeah? Yeah. I kinda...Maybe...Borrowed something of hers, too, just in case she'd try to find her way to us again, because that would be awesome." He gives a solemn nod. "I have written the coordinates of the item and hidden it away in the file on Galvin Goose and I am writing the label of this video and leaving it in the Guatemalan mission file." He grins. "Skipper and the others will probably think it is just another file label number, that is if they even notice it. That's it for today, see ya!" The video clicks off.

Kowalski immediately slides over to the filing cabinet and starts flipping through the Gs. "Gabby, Gido, Gargon, Grange-That's out of order." He mutters to himself. "Ah! Galvin-Grouse? No. Nope, here." He finally pulls out a file on the elusive Galvin Goose. He opens the faded green folder as he waddles over to Rico and lays it and its contents out upon his workbench.

Galvin Goose had been one of their first enemies-Manfredi's very first vanquished arch. Skipper had been so proud then. The team had been at the top of its game, on a roll. Galvin Goose. He was such a liar, even his name lied. He hadn't even been a goose. He was a _mongoose_. It didn't surprise Kowalski at all that of _all_ the files to hide something in, that Manfredi had chosen this one. It had been special to him, a prize like Private's first fish that hangs on the tunnel door. In fact, Kowalski was surprised he hadn't thought of checking it sooner.

After spreading the sheets out, Kowalski finds what he was searching for: a little fluorescent pink post-it note on which there are a pair of coordinates, hidden in the very center of the stack of papers. The scientist copies down the numbers exactly and looks over at Rico. "Tell Skipper to come here at his earliest convenience." He orders.

Rico nods and slides out of the lab once again.

"Now, these coordinates…" The scientist murmurs as he waddles over to a cord and pulls down a map. He looks over the latitude and longitudes and draws a circle in erasable marker. "Tennessee...When the hydroxide did he go to Tennessee?" Kowalski passes his flipper over his head and smoothes down his flippers. "Not just when, why and how also…" He sighs and shakes his head. "All this time after he and Johnson's disappearances and they still haunt us with little unsolved mysteries…"

"Rico said you got something, Kowalski?" Skipper then says, coming behind him.

Kowalski jumps in surprise before he nods and steps away from the map. "Yes. The code led to Tennessee coordinates."

"Tennessee?" Skipper blinks and looks at the map. "Did you plot them right?" He asks and waddles closer to the map, scrutinizingly analyzing it.

"I've triple checked it, sir." Kowalski nods. "And each time it plotted at the same exact location. Manfredi has buried something there of…" He trails off into a murmur.

"Something of what?" Skipper looks at him.

"Of…" Kowalski mumbles and looks elsewhere.

Skipper waddles over to him and grabs his beak and forces him to look in his eyes. "Something of _what_, Kowalski?" He snaps.

Kowalski gives him a look. "Max's..." He clears his throat and then looks away. Skipper blinks and releases his beak for a moment. "The code was actually the label of a log and in the log he talked all about it and her and-"

Skipper raises his flipper and cuts him off. "Did he say what it was?" He asks in a softer, but still stern tone.

"No, sir…" Kowalski shakes his head.

"Then that is where we will go." The flat-headed leader nods and waddles away towards the door. "Pack your bags, boys, I have a feeling we're not going to be back here for a while."

Rico looks at them, with his happy, tongue hanging out, smile. "W'a' 'bout 'Ri'ate?"

Kowalski glances around his lab. "I suppose we should probably tell him, yes."

"Speaking of which, where is he?" Skipper also looks around and peeks out of the lab. "I told him to help you out topside." He looks at Rico.

Rico nods. "I tol' 'im he'p K'wal'ki."

Skipper looks at Kowalski now with crossed flippers. Kowalski looks at them. "I told him to go watch the Lunacorns."

"Great. Now what did he think to do when that went off all of thirty minutes ago?" The leader snorts and marches out. "Private!" Seeing no sign of the young recruit, he climbs topside with a sigh. He finds him swimming in the pool and nods a bit, relieved on the inside. "Private."

Private notices him and swims over. "Yes, sir?"

"Get you things, we have a rendezvous with Tennessee."

"Ehm, okay." He nods and climbs out, shaking the water off. Skipper nods and waddles back inside, leaving Private very confused out on the ice flow.


	4. Manfredi's Nanny Goat

**Chapter 4: Manfredi's Nanny Goat**

_Manfredi and Rico sit on the ground and wait. "'Fredi...Wait 'uch longer?" Rico groans. _

"_We have to wait until we're rescued...Or try finding our own way back." He shrugs and glances around. "Want to risk it? We maybe could try another flare later and they might see that one."_

_Rico nods. "An'ing bu' stay."_

"_Alright, then we'll venture through the forest, but we risk getting lost worse and dying stranded out here." _

"_Nah."_

_Manfredi smiles and gets up. "Who knows, maybe we'll stumble upon a hidden away village filled with hundreds of hot babes."_

"_Kaboom?" Rico asks._

"_Yes, yes, hundreds of hot babes who like explosions." He nods some, looking a little irked. "Now come on, we don't...Well, I guess we do have all day, but I have no intention of spending all day wandering this mess."_

_Rico nods some and gets up as well. "Where 'e go den?"_

"_Eeeeeehh…." Manfredi glances around from the thicket and points back the way they had slid from. "Let's see if we can find the way back to where the others had been…."_

_At this moment, Rico coughs up Johnson's compass. "'Elp?" He asks, handing the dripping, saliva-covered compass to Manfredi._

_Manfredi glances over at it. "Ehm...Yeah, probably...Jonny-boy said south, right?" He glances around and rubs the compass on his muddy underbelly._

"'_Even ee 'gees." Rico nods._

"_Seventy degrees south...So we need to go...What, thirty degrees north? I don't have a protractor to tell thirty degrees north." He sighs and rubs his face. "So we will just head north-ish and see where we end up."_

"_O'ay." His friend nods and watches him._

_Manfredi turns the compass on and watches it for a moment before pointing back the way they had come. "That's north-ish according to this piece of cod compass."_

_Rico nods and picks Manfredi up and puts him on his shoulders._

"_Hey, woah woah, Rico, no where in my last statement did I say for you to pick me up." He says with an awkward and mildly embarrassed look._

"_It fas'er." Rico shrugs and keeps him there. "Li'le buddy, li'le le's."_

"_I do not have little legs! I have normal legs!" Manfredi snorts._

"_Li'le legs." The larger penguin chuckles._

_Manfredi harumphs and holds on to Rico's head, clearly unamused. "Whatever, just waddle that way, Rico." He nods and waddles happily along that way while Manfredi keeps watch for predators or any sign of the others._

_Meanwhile, Skipper, Johnson, and Kowalski are waiting still for Manfredi and Rico's return. Kowalski and Johnson are up in the closest tree, looking for samples to bring back to analyze. Skipper sits boredly at the tree's base and waits._

"_What the deuce is taking them so long…" He groans and leans his head on the tree. "We're going to be late to that meeting with Harry."_

"_Harvey!" Kowalski shouts down to him._

"_Yeah, yeah, Harry Harvey, same difference." He sighs. "Can't we just get this whole scientific enchilada over with so we can go back? Blaaagh."_

_Johnson slides down the tree and looks at Skipper. "I conclude that we should assume Manfredi led them off course after something shiny or a woman and we need to go search for them."_

"_He was ordered not to associate himself with any females on this mission!" Skipper exclaims._

_Kowalski slides out of the tree as well and bumps into Johnson. "This is Manfredi we are discussing, sir...He does have a tendency to disregard orders and make up his own version…"_

_Skipper sighs and rubs his temples. "Don't remind me, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt...But yes, Johnson, we should start looking for them now." He gets up and dusts himself off._

_Johnson nods. "We should start going the way that we sent them and see if we can find any tracks."_

"_That'd be easier if we could use Rico…" Kowalski sighs._

"_Well we can't since he's one of the missing, so there is no sense daydreaming, Kowalski." The leader rolls his eyes. "Now let's move out." He gets onto his belly and starts sliding through the underbrush._

_Kowalski mutters something incomprehensible and he and Johnson then follow Skipper. After a little, Skipper stops sliding and holds his flipper out for the others to stop as well. _

"_You smell that?"_

"_Smell what, Skipper?" Kowalski asks and looks around._

_Johnson sniffs the air and nods. "It's flare smoke, I think."_

_Skipper nods and looks around. "Which means they are probably in danger."_

"_In danger or not, they are safer than we are since Rico has all of our weapons, sir." Johnson sighs. "Which is why I still push that we should have individual carry packs with weapons like, you know, average penguin agents."_

"_We don't do average here, Johnson." The leader scoffs. "We do all honors and I am not having my men just be _average _who the deuce wants to be _average_?! Our whole goal in life is to be _awesome_, Johnson, awesome, do you _hear _me?!" He exclaims, standing on tip toes to try to seem taller than Johnson. However, since Johnson is practically Kowalski's height, it doesn't exactly work._

"_Loud and clear, sir." The scientist sighs, pushing his glasses up his beak again._

"_Good, now fanout and search." He orders. His teammates nod and spread out in the area and search, moving ever farther south as Rico and Manfredi go north-ish with Johnson's iffy compass. _

"JONNY!" _comes an exclaim from the surrounding trees moments before Johnson gets plowed over by Rico and Manfredi. He lays there on the ground with his glasses knocked off onto the ground with a look of pure irritation. Rico and Manfredi give him nearly identical sheepish looks and scramble off of him._

"_I found them!" Johnson calls with a small irked mutter under his breath, "The hooligans." He sits up and and gets his glasses, holding them up towards the light with his eyes squinted to see how filthy they have become._

_Rico watches him and then gives the glasses a long, wet lick. "Be'er?"_

_Johnson has a grim and slightly disgusted look, but nods and wipes his glasses on his chest feathers. "Thanks…" He sighs and puts them back on his beak. Rico then helps pull him up and the scientist dusts himself off. "Where the hadron collider where you guys?" _

"_Meow-meow." The weapons specialist nods solemnly. _

_Johnson blinks and looks at him before just shaking his head and looking at Manfredi. "What?"_

_Manfredi sighs and rolls his eyes. "We had a run in with a big angry cat, lost the trail. Nothing major."_

"_You two could have been eaten alive while we waited at the start of the forest and you're calling this nothing major?" Johnson looks at him. "You have to be kidding me, even _I _know you're not _that _stupid." _

_Manfredi rolls his eyes again and then tosses him the compass. "Have your stupid paperweight."_

"_Thank you." Johnson says curtly and stashes it back away in his feathers. "Now, the others are probably too far away to have heard me so we will go back to the meeting spot and wait for them there."_

"_Who are you? Our nanny-goat?" The cryptographer snorts. "Maaaaaah! Back to the meeeeeeeting spot! Maaaaaaaaaah! You're in major trou-ou-ou-ble! Maaaaaaah! No di-i-i-inner for you!" He mocks, holding up his flippers as points on his head like goat horns and hopping around. "Maaaaah! Maaaah!"_

_Johnson gives him an even, school-teacher-like look over his glasses. "So mature...No wonder the ladies are beating down the HQ doors all of the time...Oh wait, I forgot, that's the sound of all those you've ticked off, my bad." He then abruptly turns and waddles back the way he had come._

"_Yeah, yeah, nerd." Manfredi makes a face behind his back and follows him, changing it quickly to an innocent smile when Johnson glances back over his shoulder to check to make sure that they are indeed following._

_Rico just quietly follows along without much input on his friends' conversation. He only sighs a little and trails behind them-pausing a moment to snap at a butterfly, but then continuing again with a chuckle. He had to admit, he was having a blast._

_It is not long until the four penguins make it to the meeting spot where Skipper and Kowalski are waiting impatiently. Skipper looks over at them as he hears movement and then crosses his flippers with a stern look. "What happened?"_

_Manfredi rubs the back of his neck. "Got chased down by a giant cat, sir...But we can say it did look like the right direction." He smiles a little nervously._

_Skipper just sighs and closes his eyes and is quiet for a moment. "Be more careful." He then says after a little while and walks over to a log and sits down with the map alone. Manfredi silently watches him and sighs as well before turning away and sitting down next to Rico._


	5. Never Better

**Chapter 5: Never Better**

"Sir?" Private looks at Skipper as he waddles behind him. "Why are we going to Tennessee? Is Kowalski needing to borrow one of the top-secret thingies from a military base there again?"

"What?" Skipper glances weirdly over his shoulder at him and shakes his head. "No, Manfredi hid something there and we are going to go retrieve and analyze it."

"Oh." The private nods.

Skipper nods and grabs a few things and tosses them to Rico. "Kowalski, ready the hologram. I doubt we're going to be back anytime soon."

"But we are only retrieving the thing, aren't we?" Private asks.

"There is no telling what we'll do after that, all things considering…" Kowalski says and clears his throat.

"All things considering what?" He asks.

Kowalski pats him on the head. "We'll explain when you're older. You're much too young to hear about that mission besides that it happened."

"What mission?"

"Guatemala…" Skipper sighs. "And we all would have loved to have forgotten that mission."

"Except a certain Skipper who started re-reading the file." Kowalski mutters under his breath to Private.

Skipper gives him an unamused look and then looks away for a moment and clears his throat. "I can't help that certain parts of the mission were worth reliving…"

Rico mutters something unintelligible to Kowalski and then snickers.

Kowalski struggles to restrain himself and nods. "Quite possibly, Rico, quite possibly."

"What?" Private asks.

"N-nothing, Private." The scientist giggles.

Skipper rolls his eyes. "Are you guys going to continue gossiping like a bunch of capricious nancy cats or can we move on?" He snorts.

Kowalski and Rico nod, but still stifle giggles.

"We'll take the subway to the airport and then stow ourselves on a nonstop to Tennessee. Once there we will reassess our travel possibilities." He says. "Now, move out."

The four penguins slide off to the metro where they slide down the escalator rails down to the bottom. For a moment they hide themselves behind potted plants until a lady in a long dress walks by. Skipper motions and all four slide under her dress. He keeps his flippers over Private's young, curious eyes as he has Kowalski keep watch on their position in comparison to the metro. They are in luck that their long-dressed compadre just happens to be boarding the metro that they need on. The four then roll under the seats and lay there on their bellies among the discarded bubble gum and feet of the crowded metro car.

While they sit there, Skipper contemplates the file. He thinks back on the mission itself, the traumatizing thrills, the heartbreaking romance, the fighting...He frowns. The fighting, there shouldn't have ever been any fighting. He had set the rules and the only one above his rules would have been himself.

Skipper shakes his head as his thoughts drift from the Guatemala mission to what Marlene would say to him being above his own rules. No matter how hard he shook his head, she continued her tirade. He should have followed his own rules. He should have set a better example. She wasn't worth what she nearly led them to. She was trouble beginning to end. He shakes his head harder.

"Skipper?" Kowalski looks at him softly. "Are you okay?"

"Never better." He says and stops shaking his head. 'Yes, I get it, Marlene, drop it already!' He thinks irritatedly. 'If you weren't dead, if you had left the bunnies to us, maybe I'd listen. But I don't listen to figments of my imagination. Been there, done that.' He mentally scoffs.

"Skipper, it's our stop." His lieutenant interrupts.

"Right then. Men, roll out." He orders and the four roll themselves out of the subway car. "Kowalski, Rico, scout out a map so we can figure out where we are."

"Aye aye, Skipper." Kowalski nods and he and Rico separate, leaving Skipper and Private standing behind a trashcan.

Private looks at Skipper thoughtfully. "What happened in Guatemala, Skipper?"

Skipper tenses up and glances at the young private. "Too much to explain, Private...But in all unclassified simplicity, there was a mission. The five of us became sidetracked. There was a brawl that no one won. Then we came to our senses and came home, leaving the mission incomplete." He looks off into the distance. "It was a dark time for teamwork." He sighs.

"Incomplete?"

"Yes, but it was better leaving it unfinished than the team breaking apart and going our separate ways." He nods with a frown.

"Are we going to finish it now?" He asks with a smile.

Skipper glances over at him tiredly and pats him on the head. "We'll see, young Private. That will depend on many things….Many classified things."

"Oh…" He looks at Skipper again. "If we do try to complete it, do I get to know what happened then?"

The skipper looks at him with a small, amused smile. "Ah, young sweet, naive Private, if we all had this demanding curiosity of yours, we'd be dead." He shakes his head with a chuckle. "Some things are better that you just never know, Private."

"Fiddlesticks." Private murmurs and crosses his flippers, disappointed.

Skipper just chuckles a little to himself and watches as Kowalski and Rico side back to them. He had to admit, he had missed this. The thrill, the focus, the teamwork. Just the four of them, like it had been before Marlene...But still it just didn't feel the same, more bittersweet.

"Sir, we should be able to slide to the plane without issue." Kowalski says, taking out his clipboard and showing him the brochure map he has borrowed.

"Great." Skipper nods. "We'll hide out in the cargo hold."

"But what about the pets aboard, sir?"

Skipper looks at Private. "You're the one always going on about friendship and diplomacy, you figure them out once we're aboard."

Private swallows nervously and Kowalski pats his shoulder. "Plus they'll be in cages anyway, no worries." He whispers.

"Oh...Right." He smiles a little relieved.

Skipper has already started sliding and stops to see his team not following. "Come on you lollygaggers! Planes run on schedules!"


End file.
